In the Year
by algie888
Summary: "It was the year of our Lord fifteen-eighteen, a year of long summers and orange sunrises over Tudor courts. A year of happiness, a year of beauty." Her name was Tara, and she was mother of all. Tudor!Human!Toothiana.


**A/N: Bwahaha! My first venture into the world of RotG- don't worry, I'll be here a while... *grins* Anyways, I want to give a GREAT BIG shoutout to Mahlia, for editing this for me. You're a saint! **

**Just to clear stuff up, this is a Headcanon about Tooth's past. Just want to throw that out there. **

* * *

"It was the year of our Lord fifteen-eighteen, a year of long summers and orange sunrises over Tudor courts. A year of happiness, a year of beauty."

:

Her name was Lady Tara of Dublin.

She was renown over Hampton, regarded only in hushed whispers and quiet songs in the minds of the palace bards, her bright eyes and smile dazzling everyone she met to a quiet, stunned stupor. Her manner, too, was somewhat perplexing. She was a child, the vision of pure happiness at all times. She would laugh and dance and sing with the children, holding them close. The lords clambered over princes to speak with her just to make her laugh, as the sound was undeniably beautiful and musical. A wandering minstrel had informed her at an inn that her laugh was a peal of bells and even pearls were jealous of her teeth.

"Lady Tara," greeted a young man, bowing to her and pressing a gloved hand to his lips for a kiss. Tara blinked once and a wide beam erupted from her as she let out a quiet giggle at him, attempting to coax the shadow of a smile from his mouth.

"Lord Francis, I believe?" she asked, her voice high and tremulous as he stepped somewhat abruptly to the side, twisting his heel so that they stood next to each other. Tara felt shivers move up her back as their shoulders brushed.

"You presume correctly," he answered and cast a glance at her from the corner of his eyes. "Your dress is rather splendid, milady," he said quietly. Tara felt her cheeks flush with the compliment and she smoothed her hands over the fabric.

"Thank you— it is my favourite," she said, and let out a quiet sigh. It was azure blue silk with laces of green and gold trailing down the skirt like the plumage of a bird, and the starch ruff was edged in the lightest of pinks. She spun once, allowing the skirt to flow outwards like the wings of a fairy. Her head cocked to the side as she took in his attire for the first time: he dressed only in black.

"I find it fitting that this ball is at night," he murmured, "if the sun were to see that dress, she would surely hide her head in shame that she were not the brightest thing for my eyes to see."

"You flatter me so."

"I speak only the truth."

At the age of eighteen, in love and in white, who smiled only when she was in his arms. He was sullen and brooding; she brought light with every touch. There were whispers in the palace that he held her against her will, that he was a monster, that she would cry for help in the nights. Tara paid them no mind. She simply smiled, and laughed, and continued walking in step with her husband, never dropping behind.

:

_"I hear that she is with child."_

_ "I heard that last week— but really? Is it true?"_

_"I heard from Sir William that the child was already born, but the cursed father tossed him away into a river."_

:

Whispers at a fountain, nothing more, and they passed from the lips of the unwise to Tara's delicate, but always attentive ears. She had never thought much of children, but hearing the women speak of her as a mother… She could already see the darling little one dancing at the edge of her vision. She could feel the sweet goodnight kiss on her cheek, the scent of milk that all children seemed to smell of reaching her nose.

"A child," she proclaimed to Francis when he returned from court. "A little girl, good sir, for me to give all the joy in the world. A darling boy, who will grow to be the strongest of men— I want nothing more!"

He crossed the room instantly to stand by her at the fireside, wrapping his arms around her and smiling. "Why do you suddenly embrace motherhood? If I can recall, you feared it."

She shook her head, "Not a fear of motherhood, but a fear of making mistakes," Tara told him, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "And I am prepared to make all the mistakes in the world for that child, if my husband is prepared to make them with me." She smiled at him hopefully, and her teeth sparkled in the light.

"He would be insulted if he were not," Francis said, and smiled at her, a small twist of his lips that never failed to make her heart race and eyelids flutter almost desperately.

He pressed a kiss to her brow and held her close. "Anything," he told her, smiling gently, "for my sweet wife. If it is a child she wishes, then a child she will have."

They laughed together by the crackling fireplace, whispering quiet stories of blue-eyed angels in white bonnets, and of blonde-haired singers with their mother's smile. Their happiness swelled into a glorious crescendo that night and threatened to hang there forever.

:

"It is the year of our Lord fifteen-twenty, a year of a deep autumn that lasts twice as long as the last summer, and of cloudy middays. It was a year of tears."

:

Tara was blissful. Her toes would curl in contentment while she basked in the glow of a spring sun, and the words of a song drifting in the breeze. She had a darling boy, with her blonde hair and his father's green eyes, and a smile that was so bright that it almost made Tara cry— she would never be so happy as her darling little boy.

They named him James, but Jack for anyone who was not his mother when she was angry. He grew to a gurgling baby, and an inquisitive toddler, eyes large with wonder at the world. Tara often dreamed of holding him all his life, to shield him from all that was evil in this world, to save him from anything that could do him harm.

But, like in the tale of Baldur, the most terrible of things happen to the most innocent of children.

Jack had been playing in the stables around the horses- how that boy loved his darling horses. It had been nearing evening, and Tara sat by him on a stool, sewing quietly with a lullaby hummed beneath her breath. Jack would let out little calls every minute or so, to remind her that he was still there and she would laugh at his silly little faces in the way that only a mother could.

A shrill scream pierced the night and Tara leapt to her feet, almost ripping apart her gown as she lunged for her boy, acting only on the instincts of every mother before her and every mother after. He was bleeding from his arm and the tears falling on his cheeks caught the dim evening light. She shrieked for the palace doctors and watched as her son was led off into the night by a man with gentle words and calming hands.

He grew ill soon after, the blood not stopping. It had been his first fall, and it would be his last. The blood flowed and flowed like a floodgate that had been opened, and Tara could do nothing but weep. Jack grew as pale as the man in the moon, eyes weak and voice quiet. Gone was the laughing child she had raised, here instead was a dying boy. There was no way that she could deny the fact that with every moment his life slipped further from this earth.

Francis could say nothing to her for comfort. In a way, it almost helped.

"He's gone," she whispered, her hands fisting at the grass that covered Jack's grave. "He's gone, like a candle snuffed." Tears ran down her cheeks and she made no effort to wipe them away.

Francis' arms went around her, but they were nothing to her but cool air. The tears flowed freely and they dripped down the grave like raindrops, catching the light and sparkling. Her eyes were dull as Francis swiped the tears away from her cheeks, resting the side of his head against hers.

"No mother should ever have to bury their child," she told him, and pressed an unsteady kiss to the cold stone. Francis' eyes drifted shut as they sat there, two in black, trying to protect a boy who had long since grown too old for it.

:

"It is the year of our Lord fifteen-twenty nine, a year of harsh winter that crushed its fingers deep into the walls at Hampton court. It was a year of deep sunsets across the sky. It was the year of the plague."

:

Tara had been riding through the village on her white horse, keeping her eyes to the sky as she moved forwards, knowing that if she looked down she would fall too far. The sky thundered ominously, but she simply smiled. Lightning used to bother her, but not anymore. She didn't think there was anything left in the world that could ever make her upset.

A light tug on her skirt caught her attention and she looked down.

There was a small child holding out a bowl of alms, despairingly empty and brokenly desperate. Tara placed half a crown into it, and smiled at the girl.

"Your name, child?" she asked, and the girl coughed violently. The woman recoiled slightly, but relaxed when the young thing smiled.

"Mary," she croaked out. Tara nodded gently, her eyes burning from the fact she had not smiled this way since Jack. "Mary Hansen."

"Why, hallo, Mary," said Tara, and politely shook the child's hand. "My name is Tara. It is a pleasure to meet you." Tara felt herself smile for the first time in a long while.

"Thank you," said the girl and she coughed again. Tara winced and took a good look at the girl. Mary's skin was pale and there were dark circles under tired red eyes. Her cheeks had a slight yellowing quality to them, as though she had already died.

"Are you sick, Mary?" asked Tara quietly, and her mind dredged an image of Jack slowly seeping away from her…

"Yes'm. With the plague, ma'am," said Mary and Tara swallowed thickly. "Mama told me to stay in London until I got better."

"And where is your mother?" asked Tara, her head cocking to the side, and Mary sighed quietly, the toe of her shoe sticking into the dirt as she deliberated over an answer.

"She's in the country. She did not want to catch the plague from my brothers and I," the girl admitted, and Tara was shocked.

"She left you? And your brothers?" Tara asked, almost disgusted by the woman's actions. Mary nodded and Tara's eyes narrowed— that woman had no right to call herself a mother.

"Take me to your brothers, Mary," said Tara, and Mary looked confused for a moment, before grabbing onto the horse's reins, steering her through the streets.

:

She had let her own son die, in pain and in darkness. She would not allow another.

:

And so Tara found herself sitting in a darkened room, wrapped only in a multi-coloured quilt for warmth in this dark winter, with a child at either side of her. She let out a quiet murmur of a song, stroking Mary's hair with a pale hand.

"You would die for them, Tara?" asked Francis, enraged. "You would die for a child you do not know? What of me?"

"I am a mother," she told him calmly, "a mother with a child who left her too soon. That makes me the mother of all children. I have so much love yet to give."

"You could stay with me, give me that love," he pleaded. "I am nothing without you, Tara, nothing!"

"What is a mother without a child?" she asked, and sighed. "I love you, Francis, but I love the children. I must protect the children. Can't you see?"

"You'll be fine," she whispered to the girl. Her brother was too heavy on Tara's shoulder and growing colder by the minute, but she could not bear what she would see in his eyes. The room stank of despair, but Mary had the smallest of smiles on her face.

"Thank you," she murmured to Tara, her eyelids shutting with almost a peaceful flutter. Tara tried to cry when she felt the young girl still, but all she could do was let out a hacking cough.

The tears streamed down her cheeks as she coughed, the only sound in the dead silence. Tara clutched the two children to her, rocking back and forth as she ran over her memories, embracing each one of them with finality.

And her smile stilled, serene in the moonlight.

Tara's eyes flickered open, the moon's rays waking her. The quilt fell from her shoulders and landed on the ground quietly, blanketing the children who lay there. Her wings stretched out and a gentle smile crossed her face as the moon whispered to her ever so quietly:

"Your name is Toothiana, Guardian of Memories. It is the year of our Lord fifteen-thirty, a year of the brightest spring ever recorded, and of sunrises so brilliant over that endless horizon that was the sea. It is a year of life."


End file.
